


Sweet Talker

by Strawberry_Sweetheart



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: And doesn’t even know it, Billy Hargrove Being Less of an Asshole, Billy is a sweet talker, Billy is an asshole, M/M, Smut, Steve is head over heels, billy being like socially manipulative, but also occasionally dicks, eventually, he knows how to get what he wants and get where he needs, social butterfly billy, theres plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:33:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strawberry_Sweetheart/pseuds/Strawberry_Sweetheart
Summary: He’s a real sweet talker alright, and Steve finds, for being the charmer he can be, for all his ability to talk some sucker into circles, he doesn’t say much at all. That Billy Hargrove, he hears the town say, that boy from California with the temper of short-fused dynamite. The older ladies will whisper gossip, blush at the way he makes them feel youthful again with his snake oiled words, and the older men will warn their daughters about guys like him who are up to no good. They’ll say: he’ll string you along that, that one, don’t let him play you a fool.Or: Steve is strung along with the rest of the town, buying into Billy’s calculated persona, but he wants to get to know what is under Billys practiced layers of small talk and million watt smile. His words are his armor and Steve wants to pick it apart.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	Sweet Talker

"Baby," he croons low and sweet, "how about we get lost for a while?" Billy is a real sweet talker, got sugar pills for teeth and a mouth full of honey when he wants, and the girl he’s talking up smiles soft at him, a little excited behind the eyes, and follows him up the stairs where the music is muffled through the walls and the scent of sex is thick, where people tumble in and out of beds.

Billy finds Steve among the crowd, sends him a sly grin and sticks out his tongue, _score_ he mouths, before disappearing up the steps with his new arm candy.

Billy is loaded gun when he wants to be, a real sleazy type of person, the kind that can con a man out of his own money. It’s all that charm ya know, that practiced tone and movements that makes the person he’s talking to feel safe trapped between his teeth, makes them want to lean a bit closer and buy whatever he’s selling. Steve’s seen him talk his was out of trouble, whether it be buttering up the cashier to sell him booze without an ID check or getting out of a speeding ticket; Billy could sweet talk the Devil into a blush.

He’s a real sweet talker alright, and Steve finds, for being the charmer he can be, for all his ability to talk some sucker into circles, he doesn’t say much at all. That Billy Hargrove, he hears the town say, that boy from California with the temper of short-fused dynamite. The older ladies will whisper gossip, blush at the way he makes them feel youthful again with his snake oiled words, and the older men will warn their daughters about guys like him who are up to no good. They’ll say: he’ll string you along that, that one, don’t let him play you a fool.

Oh, but Billy makes it so fun to play his game, you won’t even give a damn if you lose, already hoping he’ll reset the board and call you to another round.

That boy from California, that short tempered son of a bitch, that guy will talk you into anything if you let him talk long enough.

And yet, for all his sweet talk, for the he runs his mouth, that’s all anyone knows about him.

There’s one thing that Steve realizes that comes with the brutal fall of a high social standing is that if you fall hard enough, you skip being someone’s punch line and go straight to being a nobody. People don’t cast him pitying glazes or mocking laughs as he passes, they just don’t see him at all, or can’t bring themselves to care enough to spare him a glance. It’s like he blends into the walls, another faceless nobody, a once-somebody that everyone’s forgotten. And now that he’s unseen and unheard, he sees and hears everything.

It’s the little snippets of conversation he collects when he gathers empty Sunday glasses from tables and while he wipes down a neighboring table, that he builds what he can of Billy Hargrove up from the scraps he’s feed. People don’t bother to whisper around him, to be wary of his presence. After all, who is he? A nobody who’s got nobody to tell.

"He’s talking to Kelsey again —" Steve already feels pity for whoever Kelsey is and scoops plain vanilla into a cone, "— in the same classes. Apparently he’s wicked smart. Right? That’s the same face I did, but she sits behind him in English and she said he gets near perfect marks on his work."

It doesn’t be surprise him, Billy has a way with words; Steve can’t think I’d be hard for him to string together a sentence when he’s as much as a silver tongue as he is. He’s smart, Steve picks at this little piece of Billy Hargrove he’s collected, and with the wit behind his insults, Steve doesn’t know why he never figured it out before.

——

"Are you planning on going to college?"

Billy doesn’t spare him a look or any indication that he’s heard him. He does that when he talks to guys, doesn't look them in the eye when he talks to them unless the weather forecast is predicting a brawl. Not unless they’re someone important. He plays his card of disinterest, gives him an air of importance that makes clear that his attention must be earned and that his time is worth more than yours. It makes people want to work for it, makes them feel accomplished when he throws them a response as a bone. Makes them feel like somebody when he’s finally looks at them.

Billy’s cheeks hollow slightly, just enough to suck in the smoke of the cigarette, and taps the ash off the end. It falls in a dust of colored black tar, the red sparks dying as it lands on the quarry rock. "Careful Harrington," he drawls, the words coming out in puffs of smoke as he side eyes him, just long enough that Steve gets a second of blue when all the sky has been is grey grey grey, "I might think you’re trying to make a friend out of me."

"Don’t know where'd you get such an idea, but I think we’re something of friends, especially with how friendly I can be."

Billy spreads his legs and lean a back just a little more against the Camaro's hood, his lip up curls a bit on the right, a self satisfied type of smile he wears when wins each of his little games with people, and Steve sinks to knees right there, looks up Billy’s long neck when he exhales smoke upwards. Because yes, Steve knows how Billy plays his games, knows how much of a sweet talker he can be, knows how it feel about like when he finally looks at you after hoping for a bit of attention. Steve is just as much as an ensnared fool as the guys who trip over him on the court and the housewives who pretend they have a chance at feeling young again. Billy talks him into circles, talks him onto his knees or back, time and time again, and Steve is relieved each time Billy sets up the board again, ready to be played over and over and over.

No one comes to the quarry when it’s this cold and frigid outside, not when the clouds threaten to rain down and ice coats the already dangerous roads of the quarry. He grips at Billy’s belt with both hands, just to have something to hold, and listens to the hums of easy pleasure that Billy releases with all that smoke. He preens at the casual hand that rests on his head, tries to catch Billy’s eyes when he takes him down down down... but Billy continues to wear the cigarette down to a bud and looks at the clouded view of the sky, not bothered enough to see Steve make a mess of himself, wrapped around his dick.

"Hope they have boys who suck dick as good as you in Chicago." It’s dark now and properly cold for it being March, the drizzle has just started, light and soft enough that it could be mistaken for snowflakes when it lands on his skin. He’s drank enough from a bottle of Jack Daniel's to keep him warm, enough that taste of Billy’s cum has been washed out clean. "It’d be real shame if not one lowlife frat guy is a decent enough cocksucker as you. Might have to drive all the back to Hawkins just to have a good fuck."

Steve takes it for the answer it is, but still the question just branches off into segments. It’s a while after and it’s only gotten colder. Steve is sitting on the ground getting dirt in his jeans, licking leftover liquor from his lips. Billy pulls on his ankles until he slouches to lie on his back, his head is dizzy with the buzz he’s worked up, but he lifts his hips when Billy pulls at the waistline of his pants, bends his knees and spreads his legs to be a little more inviting of the man between them. Billy only ever returns the favor when they’re both drunk enough that Billy can forget its a guy he’s sucking off, Steve figures.

What school is he going to, Steve wonders, and if he’s as smart as that no name girl said he was. Does he have a scholarship? Maybe he’s going to be an English Major, put those words to good use.

Billy talks but rarely ever says much, but anything he does offer Steve stores it away. He doesn’t know why anymore, can’t deny to himself that it’s no longer the vague curiosity of his eccentric character. Steve doesn’t know why he cares, why he wants to know everything there’s is about Billy Hargrove, but he has so little time left to carve the details of this image he’s creating of him. He’s running out of time, and with how Billy can seem larger than life, Steve doesn’t know if anyone can ever know everything there is to know about him.

But Steve wants to try.

"Why?"

"I have a date today, sweetheart." Billy always coats his pet names in syrup but they always taste like bitter, burnt sugar on his tongue. Billy has no sweetheart and Steve isn’t delusional enough to think of himself as anyone’s sweetheart either. "Just pick her up along with that kid that follows you around and drop her off at her friend's house. I’d really owe you one, sugar." He licks his lips and leans over the counter. Billy is looking at him in the eyes, like he does more and more often, and Steve doesn’t know when that’s started to happen. It makes him weak in the knees, makes him feel three feet tall and like his head is in the clouds all the same.

"But I’m busy."

"Don’t be like that with me," he juts his bottom lip out in the way he does to tease Steve before it melts into a smile, all sharp teeth but soft eyed, blinding with charm and manufactured sincerity, "you really gonna say no to me?" He widens his eyes like it’s the most unbelievable thing he’s heard, someone saying no to him. Steve hates it when Billy is like this, when he gets all playful the way he can get, all teasing like. It gives him whiplash. But he’s also gathered that Billy’s built this particular brand of charm custom made for Steve, because he knows people. No one knows people the way Billy knows people. Billy knows that the best way to get him to do anything that doesn’t involve sucking him off in the backseat is to be _sweet_ to him.

No one sees Billy as playful as he gets with Steve, and it makes his heart stubbornly kick. Even if it’s just to get Steve to bend for him, even if it’s not genuine, because Steve isn’t fool enough to willfully blind himself. It makes him feel...

Feel...

Billy tilts his head just so, leans in that much closer, lets his eyes trail from Steve’s own down the length of his body and back up. His smile sharpens when Steve looks away, warmth in his cheeks that must he so noticeably red against his fair skin. Steve looks back at him, they both know he’ll say yes, and Billy has the tip of his tongue clenched between his teeth, like getting Steve to bend over for him is the most excitable thing to do.

"Thanks sweetheart. I really owe you one." He turns before Steve even says yes, but looks over over his should when Steve sighs. "Come on now, Stevie, don’t get huffy on me."

Billy is whirlwind of a character, isn’t he?

It seems like he’s always more aloof and cruel at night when they find themselves in silence and breathing each other in. He looks at Steve with those steel eyes and talks him down ‘til he’s pliant enough to follow his whim. He’ll leave without much of a thought, no regard Steve’s shaking legs or still weeping cock. But watching Billy saunter out of the shop, whistling like it’s a _beautiful sunny day in Hawkins, pretty boy, won’t you smile for me_. He prefers it when Billy doesn’t pretend like he’s more than someone willing and easy.

He prefers that Billy to this one, because this Billy makes him ache like he could be someone's sweetheart.

——

Jealous flares up where Steve has no right to feel it, right between his ribs like a growing pain, whenever Billy turns those sugar words on others. He doesn’t know when that started, doesn’t really care to find out, just knows its next level kind of stupid, that thought, because Billy is like that with everyone. Steve isn’t special, he isn’t even the first person he’s bedded with his silver tongue dripping sweet, and he won’t be the last. Sometimes it makes him feel unsettled, the way it is so easy for Billy to charm people, the way how, sometimes, it doesn’t seem like an act. He used to think he hated it, maybe envied the way he could go anywhere and string along anyone nearby, make himself a real somebody, you know? 

But looking now, across the grocery store with shelves of canned processed foods and boxed instant meals, he realizes it’s not really envy that settles in him when he sees Billy laugh low and smile sweet, at least not in the way Steve thought it to be. It’s envy when Billy turns into something more than just playing nice and climbing his way through the social ladder, when he turns it into that flirtatious cock of his head and right-placed touches. It’s envy when it is not him that that attention is turned to. He realizes this because there is something unnatural to seeing Billy’s tight pursed lips when he is not in the middle of intimidating someone. Unnatural when there’s a shell around him and he’s drawn himself in instead of outward like he usually does.

Steve turns around a can of legumes in his hand to read the nutritional information like he’s actually invested in it, but his eyes drift to the corner where Billy stands with dad. He stands behind him instead of to his side, hands tucked into his jacket pockets and shoulders stiff up to his ears. It’s not the Billy he’s familiar with, of all the different sides to his grand personality, this is the one that doesn’t seem to fit him. Like it’s a size too small. He rather see Billy flirting with the girl at the community pool and charming the housewives than see him so closed up and… not in control. 

Because that’s what it is, right? At the end of the day, the way Billy talks and makes himself the larger person in the room, that way he works around social circles and all types of people, it’s all about Billy’s control over others, socially. The way people just give it to him, and rarely needing to take it. Yes, what Steve’s looking at is a Billy who is not in control of his surroundings, and he finds that really doesn’t settle right with him.

Steve adds a couple more cans to his shopping basket, meets Billy’s eyes when he turns. Billy’s eyes narrow into slivers of ice like they did a year ago and Steve struggles to find his footing. It’s like Billy is trying to grasp any small piece of control he can get, but it all slips out of his hands when his dad snaps something at him and he turns back at attention, carries the man's case of beer and follows him out the door without a second look back.

——

Steve is starting to think that he’s getting too careless with the line he’s draw in the sand, that little line separating the acceptable and unacceptable. Billy has him playing hopscotch back and forth, getting increasingly daring and increasingly pushy. He has a thing for getting caught, or the possibility of it. He’s always licking his lips at the thought of danger and rebelling. But in the end, if they get caught, it’s not Billy that will lose the game. Because Billy’s days are numbered in this small town in a shiny golden ticket of his acceptance letter, but Steve will be the one stuck stagnant. Steve is the one that will suffer from the telephone line of gossip if it ever whispers _queer_. 

But Steve doesn’t tell him no.

It’s how he finds himself tucked to the side of a conversation Billy is having with his dad of all people. There’s a dinner party he’s hosting and Billy had caught wind of it, asked him, “What’s in the Harrington name, pretty boy. People around town speak it more than they say God’s name.”

Steve had given him a considering look, wondering why Billy would be so interested. Billy is never interested in anything about his life, and certainly doesn’t care enough to ask. But there he was asking anyway. Steve shrugged, “He was born here, you know? Guess they never thought someone from this deadened corner of the world could make something of themselves. Probably more surprised that he decided to stay here, for the most part.”

“So you’re talking more than just small-town rich, hot shot? What’s your daddy do, Harrington? He work in some big fancy company?”

“Actually,” Steve had flicked the cigarette he had been smoking and crushed the last dying sparks with his shoe, “he owns it.”

Really, the shark toothed smile he got in response had etched Steve’s fate then and there, but he was too stupid to see it.

Billy showed right up at the doorstep in a nice button up shirt with not so much of a warning, ready to make a mess of the rich folk’s world. Steve didn’t think someone like Hargrove would ever own a shirt so formal with the pair of dark fitted slacks. Steve feeds off of the same thrilled buzzing that radiates from Billy when he charms his dad and business partners. Steve has stopped listening to the small talk that they spin, focusing instead on the way Billy’s lips move animatedly. Billy uses his whole face to really sell his words, to really hook a fish clean on the line. His brow dips apologetically when he says "oh, I’m sorry, didn’t see you there" to ladies he bumps into. He laughs full bellied, eyes scrunching up and mouth stretched wide, at the senseless jokes he’s told by his dad’s business partners. And he leans into the conversation he’s having, like he’s listening to every word his dad is saying. Like he understands a word about ‘finances’. 

Steve watched the way his dad’s posture steadily morphed from crossed arms and a skeptical look to patting Billy on the shoulder and introducing him to others. He’s _networking_ , he figures, counting the number of people Billy shakes hands with and charms out of their socks. Networking and socializing in a way he’s never been able to do no matter how much his dad tried to make him do. He’s sure to get an earful after everyone leaves, the same reoccurring conversation of, "Why can’t you be more like him? Maybe you should pay attention and learn a thing or two." But watching Billy work the floor is something different, leaves him breathless and weak.

It’s something you can’t learn to do, it’s something that comes naturally, like a talent. Gotta be a real people person to do what Billy does.

Steve sucks him off when they manage to escape upstairs, just for a while before anybody starts questioning where disappeared off to. Billy fists the sheets and thrusts up into his mouth, muscles flexing under his button up. "Gorgeous, baby. What do you think they’d say about you, huh? Daddy’s only heir a true cocksucker." He swallows him down as far as he can, no longer finding it difficult to set a rhythm. A hand comes up to pet his hair, pushing it back with a soft hand until he pulls off with a pop. Billy spins them until Steve is looking up at him, his frame taking up his entire field of vision, Golden skin and dirty blonde curls illuminated by the movie blue lights of the pool’s reflection coming through the window.

"I’m gonna ruin you, pretty boy." Like he hasn’t already. Like he doesn’t have Steve eating from the palm of his hand along with the rest of the town. He makes quick work of Steve’s belt, rings knocking loudly against the metal buckle. "Gonna make sure you know nobody can give it to you as good as I can. I’ma leave you wanting for years, sweetheart. Won’t be able to get me out of your head, yeah?"

Billy’s mouth tastes like wine and leaves Steve drunk on his tongue. He licks up into that heat, wrinkling Billy’s shirt with his fingers clutching tight at his arms. Billy chuckles at his noises, eats up his whines and strokes his hip like he’s someone that needs to be soothed. Tells him, _easy baby_ , when Steve can’t hold in his groans. There’s company downstairs and anyone can come up knocking. His dad can come up knocking. Steve just rolls his hips against Billy, fighting the hands at his hips that try to keep him still. Chokes on every _sweetheart, sugar, baby_ that he’s offered. Eats it all up with a spoon. Saving up each moment of rare tenderness for when the summer is over and Billy leaves the town with a gaping whole, taking all the life from their mundane town right along with him.

He feels so good in him, Billy, filling up the empty spaces hollowed inside him. Those bulky rings nick at his cock, only makes him moan louder until Billy clamps a hand over his mouth with a teasing self satisfied grin. Billy’s lips ghosts at his neck, Cupid’s bow nicking at heart line. "So good for me, baby. So perfect for me, aren’t you." Steve’s often thought that the fighter in Billy was his true person under the layers of his practiced facade. The Billy that laughed when he knocked out Jovie during senior year and wore unclaimed bruises like trophies. Nobody carries bruises like Billy, like his scathed knuckles were something to preen about.

But that was before this. Even after the beginning of what this can be called. Before when Billy wouldn’t look him in the eye or spare him glance. Because now, Steve thinks under all those faces Billy wears, he’s a real lover boy, ya know. Nothing makes him come alive like sex does. He clenches around him and cums in Billy’s palm, shaking when Billy continues his rapid pace, singing praises to the body he’s given him. "Give me everything," he says, eats Steve up with a spoon and spits him out. "You ain’t ever gonna find another like me, you hear me?" Steve believes him. “No one that’ll fill you up like I can.” He tightens his hand around Steve’s spent dick and Steve moans right into Billy’s palm where he keeps his noises between them like the most lewd secret. Teeth sink into his shoulder and Billy pulses inside and spills into the condom.

He lies there when Billy pulls Steve’s pants up and does his belt. Fingers that dripped with lube thumbing the buttons up of Steve’s shirt before doing his own. Billy is a different vision once he’s had his fill, all sated smile and heavy narrow hooded eyes. It hurts and it shouldn’t, Steve knows, to think that Billy lights up the way he does with other girls and guys. That others have seen him as alive as he does. It’s a dangerous thought to have.

They run fingers through their hair and smooth out the wrinkles from their clothes. Billy nips at his ear on their way down the stairs before disappearing back into the crowd, giving his dad a pleasant smile and nod goodbye. Shakes his hand with the hand that warmed Steve’s lips.

——

It wasn’t until the summer ended, the last days of August already cooling as it welcomed the September month, that he thought about the weight of Billy’s presence in Steve’s world. Billy left for college with a trunk filled with his things. It was a surprise when he stopped by his house, catching Steve right when he came back from work. He appreciates it more than he should, hearing a half assed goodbye and getting to see the taillights of the Camaro as it leaves down the road instead of being left without a token of goodbye. Hurts like a Bitch, too. Feels like there’s a string attached to the bumper of that car and the other end is wrapped in the cavity of his chest, tangled on his ribs. Swears that he can feel it yank when car disappear from view and he can no longer hear the rumble of its engine. The last time he’ll hear it, he’s sure.

Steve doesn’t know how true those words shared at the dinner party are until it’s well over months later. He’d thought that everyone else in town had been caught in the same allure as Steve, in the same fixation and entrapment spun by Billy. And maybe they were. But then gossip changes and the heartbroken girls have finished their weeping within weeks. By the time fall has really kicked in, people have found a new obsession, a new topic of interest. The space left by Billy gets filled by time, but it's Steve who is stuck in a spiderweb knitted from Billy’s words, the only one that struggles to break free, waiting to be devoured whole in the web has long been left empty.

He misses him and he shouldn’t. 

He misses the color blue. 

The shade of his eyes a soft baby blue, light and a-flamed on those nights when they could touch. When he was allowed to touch. The shade of deep blue of the Camaro, standing out among the dull suburban colors of Loch Nora, parked outside the driveway next to the Beemer, as prominent and telling as a scarlet A etched on Steve’s skin. He gets off to the thought of silver rings and gold skin, to the way his voice can seem so cold one minute and warm the next. The words, _I’m gonna ruin you_ , ring true each time he moans his name and each second he consumes his thoughts.

He’s not stupid, no matter what people tell you otherwise. He knows that he’s not in love with him. They weren’t able to really know each other for that. Steve can’t tell you about his family or his dreams and he’s sure Billy wouldn’t be able to either. They were just two people that kept each other warm, who sometimes stayed to elongate the night and talk about nothing important. But Steve will admit that he did like him, more than he should. He holds this deep admiration for him and everything he was capable of. That admiration, the memory of him like a large bronze statue, sweeter than the reality, that has stayed long after Billy’s left. 

But that was the purpose of it all, Steve thinks. Billy trying desperately to not be forgotten. And working hard for it. Someone memorable.

His crush and lust leaves, but the admiration stays. 

And in December he meets someone he really likes, some girl who went to school a town over. She’s smart, but can’t afford to go to college, stuck working multiple minimum wage jobs until she can. Her hair is curly, light brown. Everything about her is light from her laugh to her hazel eyes to the faint pale pink tone she likes to paint her nails. Steve really likes her. He wonders how long they’ll last.

They date for two years and when they break up, Steve isn’t left wanting. 

It’s like there’s something missing inside him that she was never able to fill.

——

It’s strange how someone you haven’t thought about in a long time pops up again, and it jars Steve where he’s sitting at the dinner table, listening to his dad talk about the new interns they'll have at work. Steve’s dad has offered him a position after working minimum wage jobs here and there, figured maybe Steve is ready to really handle the added responsibility. He tries to pressure him to go to college, and Steve’s really considering it. Really. He just doesn’t think his dad will like what he chooses to do in life if he does. So, for now, he’s working as one of the secretaries on one of the upper floors. It’s a lot of multitasking and organizing and setting up appointments between one rich guy and the next. 

It’s a lot harder than it seems, if Mindy, one of the nice older ladies who brings him home baked goods from time to time, didn’t work on the same floor as him, Steve would have jumped out the window.

It’s been three years since Billy left town and yet here his name is, popping up as his dad talks. He must be a Senior, in whatever school he got into. His dad asks him about that ‘bright young man’ he brought to the dinner party all those years ago. Said he, ‘recognized the name right away, knew he was someone the company needed’. 

Steve smiles over his spoon of potatoes, amused by the way Billy must have played the long game. Even more amused that Billy was able to play his dad and his work partners the way that he did. By the way he’s talking, Billy’s slick mouth and million watt smile most likely has a secure job waiting for him right out of college. Billy really could play the smartest man as a fool.

There’s a bitter aftertaste in his mouth once dinner is over. He wonders if… if the only reason Bill ever touched him at all was to shake his dad’s hand and get his foot in the door. 

——

Life has a funny way of working. His dad’s company has multiple floors and a constant buzzing crowd of workers, so Steve wasn’t really worried about running into Billy. What are the chances? Yet, he sees Billy walk out of the elevator on his floor, in a cheaper suit than most, but with his set back shoulders and way of walking that has people stumbling out of his path. He thinks not even the most snobbish of his coworkers notice the cheaper suit when he carries himself like that. His hair is cut short and slicked back with gel, making his appearance seem uptight. He looks so different, so he doesn’t know what to expect from this Billy. It’s someone he’s never seen before.

He wasn’t expecting him to scan the crowd and land on Steve’s loansome desk. He wasn’t expecting Billy to walk towards him with a walk that can almost be described as precarious. He smiles softly, the one that lacks an open mouth of teeth and eases the harsh lines on his eyes, the one he only saw a handful of times when smoke coated their lungs and made their mind pleasantly still.

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Steve cringes at his own attempt to appear casual, realizing how dorky it was after the phrase leaves his lips. He’s sure there is a visible wince on his face, but Billy only leans against his desk, licking his lips like he’s trying to find the words to say.

“Harrington.” Steve offers an encouraging smile, but cocks his brow when Billy turns his gaze away like he’s uncertain. Intrigue makes Steve straight his back and lean closer to the man that stands by his desk, he doesn’t know what to think of the way Billy is acting. It’s not what he expected. He files away these new things about Billy like he did all those years before, adding it to the unfinished picture of the man he was building. Finally, Billy says, “Looks like we'll be seeing each other around.”

“Looks like it.”

Billy nods and purses his lips, looks like he’s about to say something before deciding against it. He nods and turns away, heading towards the back offices where the big leagues work. 

“Hey, Hargrove,” Billy turns back confused, “Congrats on your internship.”

Billy smiles tight, reserved words glaze those blue eyes, but finally his shoulders dip and the line of his back eases. 

Steve goes back to filing papers, ignoring his beating heart that seems unaware of how much time has passed or how much they’ve both changed.

Having Billy around is uneventful for the most part. Just like his arrival in Hawkins, he makes a place for himself at work, wedging himself between their daily routines until it seems like he’s always been there. The ladies are happy to have someone new to gossip about. Even Mindy, ever judgmental of everyone, falls for his charms. Billy learns each coworkers first name and last, memorizes conversations to ease the small talk. Asks about the kids and wives and little details about their lives that really sells them on his charm. The difference, one only Steve knew, was the light gaze that fell upon him sometimes, and the soft lingering of his eyes free from his social facade. 

Billy walks out of the elevator at the same time on the same days, a blue tie adding just a splash of color to the dull grey cubicles and their black and white 9 to 5 lives. He’s always running errands for one of the floor managers, following behind to sit in on those important meetings. Steve always sees him through the meeting room glass, tucked in a chair by the wall and taking notes while the rest go about their business. 

Sometimes he’ll catch his gaze through the glass and Steve will clutch his papers tighter to his chest, smile like he's sharing a secret with Billy before moving on.

He and Billy were never anything, but his body warms with the memories as if they were, with that insistent arousal at his stone face when he’s focused, and the fluttering feeling when he passes his desk every morning. 

On one particular day, weeks later, they both walk out of the building at the same time. Both of them stayed late. Billy jogs up to him as he’s leaving, a hand reaching at his elbow until Steve slows. Billy fiddles with the strap of his messenger bag, worn and tattered compared to his suit, doesn’t say much for a while. It’s weird to see Billy act anything but confident and sure of himself. Steve shifts on his feet as the silence stretches and offers to be the one to break the silence.

“Look, I’m heading to get something to eat before going home. You want to come with?”

“Yeah, I— Yeah, I wanted to talk to you actually. If you, you know, don’t mind.” 

Billy runs a hand through his hair, freeing a curl from its gel casing and bounces in front of his forehead. Steve bites his lips and resists the urge to pull on it. “Sure, man. We can do that over a shitty dinner of deli subs.”

They got to the deli just as it was closing. The guy running the joint seemed displeased at having customers so close to closing time and regards them with a tolerant and overly polite customer service smile. They decided to walk a block more until they got to a park, sat on a bench and stuffed their mouths as an excuse to prolong the silence. Steve figured neither knew how to talk to the other besides the small talk in passing at the office.

“Hey, Steve…” Billy crumbles up the wrapping as he finishes, aims at a trash can and misses.

“Yeah?”

“Just wanted to say that I’m sorry, for the way I treated you. I wasn’t very —“ Billy winces, “—nice.” It was like watching a toddler being forced to apologize. It’s probably the first time Steve’s heard him stumbling through his words. It’s probably the first time, now that he considers it, that Billy is having trouble filling the silence with his talk. Steve throws his own crumpled paper wrapping at the trash can, feeling victorious when it barely tumbles in, and leanes back on the bench, regarding Billy with an amused smile, slightly suggestive, smile.

“I think you were plenty nice to me.” Nudged Billy’s ankle with his own. Billy pulled away before licking his lips and turning his full body towards him.

“No, I wasn't. Not in the way I needed to be. I want to take you out somewhere, make up for putting you through that shit all summer. I know I … I don’t know,” he contradicted himself, “It's just. I was really selfish all those years ago, okay? I kept coming back to you and I feel like I used you to take my mind of things. You didn’t deserve to be, _played_ with like that. I was playing a game of survival, I think, doing what I needed to do to get the hell out without being eaten alive — don’t know if you noticed, but I didn’t exactly fit in a small town America place like Hawkins.” 

Steve sat mouth agape. He guesses someone like Billy, looking the way he did, so out of place would have found himself trouble if he were anybody else. If he carried himself differently. He was different in the way he dressed and even in the way he acted sometimes, eyes drifting too long on guy. Small towns don’t really like different, but they sure did like Billy. “You didn’t play me Hargrove,” he says instead, “I kept coming back. I sought you out plenty of times, too.”

Billy shook his head and cut him off. Looking at him straight in his eyes, gaze unwavering like Steve was so familiar with, but brows dipped low, pleading. 

“You don’t understand. It’s not just not that. Sex is sex, alright, but the way I would treat you sometimes, when we weren’t hooking up, It wasn’t okay. Like you meant nothing. Even if you didn’t care, or, or didn’t say anything about it. You were nice, one of the few good people I knew and I took advantage of that. And maybe I’m wrong and I’m about to sound really stupid but… I saw the way you would look at me sometimes. When I would rub your face in the girls I dated and who I was _fucking_. I’d do it because you’d look at me sometimes like I was someone worth looking at _like that_ , someone more than who I showed you, and I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, like we could be more than we were.”

Steve shut his eyes breathing deep through his nose, heart in chest excruciatingly loud. Billy’s words bringing up old memories and feelings he refused to acknowledge. That feeling that was a little more than admiration and a little more than a school boy crush and little too short to call it love. Enamored maybe. It brought back a pain too, thinking back to those moments and realizing that yeah, maybe they weren’t okay but he never really acknowledged that either. Told himself he didn’t care. Convinced himself it didn’t matter because he knew what he was getting into. 

When he opened his eyes Billy was looking at the ground, dejected.

“I was never supposed to keep coming back. Wasn’t really my style. I wanted to take my fill and leave, just know what it was like to have you and told myself that it was enough to quit you. You were something I couldn’t have, something I desperately wanted. But wanting you, the way that I wanted, was dangerous for me to have. And I didn’t really deserve back then either. I would’ve… destroyed us, if I had. So I just took what I could and I’m sorry. I don’t know what you think of me now or how you felt, feel, about me, but I wanted to try something different between the two of us. And I think where I am now, I think I’m at a position in life where it's now or never.

Geez, this is a lot of words just to say ‘let me buy you diner’, isn’t it. I want you to know that I’m asking as someone who wants to try to be something more, and someone who wants to begin to apologize for the shitty things I’ve done.”

“You’ve changed a lot, you know,” Steve says instead. “What happened while you were gone?”

“Guess I’ve just had room to breathe, pretty boy. But that’s something I don’t want to get into, right now. Maybe later, if things turn out alright. You’ve changed too. I’ve noticed.” Steve knocked their shoulders, going for a playful tone to try to lighten the mood. He didn’t think he’d changed that much.

“Have I?” The sun was setting and the only light from the lamp posts was reflected in Billy’s eyes.

“Yeah, you have.”

“Then you can tell me all about it over lunch tomorrow.”

——

On one the rare times that Billy has free time, since it seems he’s always in the middle of writing some important paper as his senior year is coming to an end, they sit in Steve’s apartment with the tv turning down low, serving just to light the room in bursts of color and fill it spaces with muttering. Billy has his college hoodie on, University of Chicago label printed proud on the front, that Steve has been eyeing, scheming, wanting to steal it right from under Billy’s nose one day and see how it fits around his slighter form. His hair curls tighter with its short length; Steve loves it more when it's free from the thick layer of gel and finds himself pulling at the strands, watching them bounce back into shape. 

“Are you going to take my dad’s job offer, once you're free from school?” Billy hums where his head is lying on Steve’s lap.

“I don’t know. It’s a good job and it’ll pay like a dream, but the plan has always been to head back to California and take you with me.” He pinches at Steve’s soft stomach where his hands had snuck under his shirt.

“Ohh, don’t let my dad hear that. You might just break his heart.”

“Would you come with me? To California?” It’s not a conversation they’ve had and definitely one that they’ve been putting off. Yet, the answer seems so easy and simple to Steve, it should be worrying. 

“I remember you saying I wouldn’t find anyone with a dick like yours—“

Billy groaned and reached for a pillow, smothering Steve’s face and pushing him down on the couch. He hated being reminded of those days, always flushed red with embarrassment. Steve fought back bravely, pushing away the cushion.

“— So it looks I have no choice but to follow you to the coast if I want to get some decent dicking,” Steve finished when he was free from the pillow. 

“Yeah, pretty boy? You sure that’s the only thing I have to offer?” He says this like he used to, like he needs to convince Steve to open up to him. Sly and low. It’s lost its seductive affect after he’s seen Billy trip while tugging off his pants one desperate and fast paced night. Billy settles his weight on top of him having no idea what a burden it is to Steve’s lungs. 

“My dad is opening a smaller office in California. Has he told you about it? You can ask about it, I doubt he could say no to you.” Not many people can say no to Billy Hargrove.

Kissing Billy is so much sweeter and less frantic when he knows there’s a promise of tomorrow, a promise of a next one and next one and the next…

“I’ll bug him about it on Wednesday. Ask him really nice the way you know I can. You’d think he’d still like me if he knew I planned to kidnap his only son and corrupt him in the west coast.” 

Tanned hands traveled down, down, down...

“Please don’t talk about my dad with your hand down my pants.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is @ Billy-baby
> 
> Don’t know how I feel about the ending since it was supposed to end when they made plans but I felt like you guys deserved a less ambiguous ending but like it came out feeling weird idk like the tone of it I guess
> 
> Might do a shorter work from Billy’s POV to fill in the gaps
> 
> Anyways 
> 
> Billy: *can talk his way out of prison if he wanted to*  
> Also billy: *cant string together a coherent when asking steve out and saying sorry* 
> 
> That’s how you know baby bois in love


End file.
